Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3010
Genesis 32:9-12.
You must have noticed, dear Friends, how very frequently God makes the life of a man to be the reflection of his character. There is an echo in the outward experience, to the inward character of the man.
Look at the life of Abraham. He trusted God in a very eminent degree—shall I be incorrect if I say that God also eminently trusted him? The Lord spoke with Abraham as a man speaks with his friend and when He was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, He said, “Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?” And as Abraham had trusted God in so notable a manner, the Lord entrusted his seed with the oracles of God and with the outward forms of religious worship, so that it was through the seed of Abraham that the Truth of God was handed on, from generation to generation, until the days of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Then, next, in contrast to the life of Abraham, take the case of Jacob. He begins life by cheating his brother and, however that cheating may have been overruled so as to fulfill the purposes of God, it was altogether unjustifiable. Now, as he had begun with Esau in that fashion, so he had it returned into his own bosom. When he was with Laban, he was cheated again and again—cheated even in the wife who was given or sold to him. He was a great bargainer—shrewd, crafty, not over scrupulous—the typical father of the Jews, yet you know how he was continually being overreached by Laban who could also bargain on his own account. What a bargaining life it was all through—and what a life of sorrow, although he was still favored of God. His outward experience was the echo of his inward character. As he had done to others, so was it done to him and in him was fulfilled our Lord’s declaration which had not then been uttered, “With what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again.”
Also look at Moses, practically renouncing the throne of Egypt by refusing to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter because he esteemed the reproach of Christ to be greater riches than all the treasures in Egypt! Yet what did he afterwards become? Was he not king in Jeshurun, with a strange and marvelous power over the hosts of the Lord and with a greater Kingdom under him, according to the judgment of all who are able to weigh things rightly, than he could ever have had if he had become the ruler of Egypt and the son of Pharaoh’s daughter?
I might give you other illustrations of this fact, but I want, rather, to attract your attention to the better side of Jacob’s character as we have it revealed in the prayer which I have selected for our meditation on this occasion.
The Chapter from which our text is taken informs us as to the circumstances of Jacob’s case at the time that he offered this prayer. He had just escaped from his trouble with Laban when he received the inexpressible honor of being met by “the angels of God.” But, lest he should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the Revelations which they made to him, a second trouble followed closely upon the heels of the first. He was soon to meet his brother, Esau, and then the great sin of his earlier years would be brought home to him. He had deceived his old father, Isaac, and had gained the birthright blessing by utterly unjustifiable subtlety—and he might reasonably expect that he was about to reap the due reward of his evil deeds!
With true Oriental craft and also with a considerable amount of common sense, he has various plans for appeasing the wrath of his brother. And then, when he had done what he thought to be wise, he betook himself to prayer. Brothers and Sisters, let us learn from Jacob’s experience to expect troubles, especially if we have so acted as to bring trouble upon ourselves—but let us also learn from Jacob’s action that while planning is right enough when kept within its proper bounds, prayer is much more important. We may easily go to excess in our planning. We may depend so much upon an arm of flesh and upon our own wisdom and prudence—and have such confidence in our own scheming that it may, after all, turn out to be utter folly! The staff on which we lean may turn out to be, at best, but a broken reed—perhaps even a spear which shall pierce and wound us. “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man”—or to have confidence in ourselves for, even if we had all the wisdom that it is possible for man to attain, it would be but created wisdom! Whereas, if we go at once to the Lord our God, we shall go to Infinite Wisdom and we may expect to be guided rightly through all the difficulties of the way!
Prayer, my Brothers and Sisters, must be our first resource. But if it is the last, let it be the first as well. Let us not merely go to God’s door because we have tried everybody else and failed. Let us not go to the Fountain simply because the cisterns are exhausted, but let us go to our God first and foremost! And let us say, “Even if earth’s cisterns did contain water, we would not forsake our God for them. And if all the forces of our fellow creatures were as real and powerful as they profess to be, we would still lean upon the arm that bears up the whole universe—the unseen arm of the faithful Creator.”